Your Uber Has Arrived

[Carrion Queen]

((Ximena Rodriguez and Stephen Sanders continued from For Everyone))

((No posting order))

Ximena brought the car to a screeching halt in front of the compound, sending a cloud of dust billowing around the vehicle. She turned the engine off, but left the keys in the ignition.

She felt jittery and full of nervous energy. They weren't out of the woods (desert?) yet. Ximena dug into her bag at Stephen's feet and threw some food bars at him. She inspected her passenger.

He was covered in brown blotches of dried blood. The desert dirt covered his hair and face. She was down to her camisole and skirt covered entirely in dried mud and blood. They looked like hell, but they were alive. Ximena smiled at him.

"You're skin and bones."

According to him during their short drive, he heard some guy take over the announcement and say everyone should run the fuck away. He also told her that Austin had died, but she didn't know any further details. It was too much to all process right now.

She hit the track button on the CD player and it changed songs.

♪ Barely move, we've arrived ♪

Ximena pushed the button to lower the driver's side window and brought her open palm down on the center of the wheel.


BEEEEEEEEEEP


BEEEP BEEEP BEEEEEEEEEP


"IT'S XIMENA AND STEPHEN" she shouted out from the window.

Please be alive. Please be alive. Please be alive.

Above them, the clouds converged. It began to rain lightly.

[Applesintime]

"You try eating nothing but shitty food bars for like, four days." Stephen mumbled in between bites of Ximena's food bars. God, he couldn't wait to get some real food in him. Something that was like, actually hot. And milk - god, he missed milk. It was a good thing he wasn't lactose intolerant or he'd be utterly fucked when it came to calcium. Those calcium tablets always left a chalky aftertaste. It was like that soy milk his mom had got him to try one time.

"OK, so at the time of... announcement, before that dude came in and fucked everything up, we know that Cecilia, Astrid, Crispin, uh, Jacob's here and I haven't heard him on the announcement, so we know they're alive." Shrugging, he leaned back in the car seat. When had he last sat down?

Rain pattered gently on the car roof. It was like a gift of life, Mother Nature reminding them that there was more than shitty desert heat.

[Gundham]

((Cecilia Moreno continued from Get In, Loser. We're Going Escaping))

Cecilia emerged from the building. She didn't die, which was a plus.

There was a vehicle - an actual vehicle - parked outside. A black sedan, with the horn blaring. For half a second, she could have mistaken it for the black SUV that the immigration services used. The illusion was shattered by a girl yelling out the window. One of the girls from school? Or someone who'd come to rescue them? At the moment it didn't really matter.

Rain began to fall. Cecilia didn't know what else to do. Didn't know who else was coming. She waved her hands at the vehicle, and ran through the rain towards it.

"Ayúdame! Hey! Ayúdame!"

[Carrion Queen]

"Yeah, 'cause I've been eating at The Olive Garden the past few days," she said, laughing. "Sorry, I didn't mean to... "

Stephen listed off the known entities and Ximena was about to quickly cut in to mention Alan, but there was a voice.

Ximena stuck her head outside of the window. Water gently flecked onto her face, loosening the mud a bit.

"Oye," she said. "Soy Ximena y Stephen esta adentro. Pase adelante. Estás de nuestra clase?"

Ximena kind of sort of knew who this was; one of the ESL girls. She nodded her head up towards the car.

"Vamos a ir en un momentito. Todavia estoy esperando para alguien."

[Applesintime]

"Fuck, now I'm just thinking about unlimited breadsticks." Popping another food bar into his mouth, Stephen stuck his head out of the window in turn, looking at the newcomer. Cecilia. One more person who was going to make it out of here. Ximena and her talked in Spanish, which Stephen didn't know, so he just pulled his head back in.

Stuff like this was proof of something Stephen had been thinking about while he had been walking; most people, innately, wanted to help each other. Whether it be holding open the door for someone, running after someone who'd dropped their wallet or driving your car back to the death game you'd just escaped from so you can get more people out. Of course, there were people who didn't have that spark in them. Those who'd rather hurt than help. But the force driving most people was kindness. Except for maybe Crispin and Raymond, but that fucker was dead.

[Catche Jagger]

For Alan, the previous night had been spent bandaging up Crispin again and trying to do a better job of fixing his own hand.

Ray had really done a number on it, searing away flesh from the underside of his fingers and completely taking the ends of his index, middle, and ring fingers, leaning them at almost uniform length with his pinkie. Still, with some help he’d manage to wrap it better, though that didn’t make sleep come any easier.

The morning had brought with it the expected announcement, this one declaring that the game was nearing its end. However, it was confusingly cut short and, a few minutes later, an unfamiliar voice had come forth to declare that the game was over, that their captors couldn’t hurt them, and that they could all leave. It was so abrupt and strange that Alan didn’t initially believe the words, left to ponder them with Crispin.

However, it wasn’t too long after that he heard the blast of a car horn and the shout of a very familiar voice.

“It’s her.” Was all Alan said to Crispin before exiting the room and making his way to the exit of the compound.

There in the parking lot, accompanied by the unmistakable siren song of “Bootylicious,” was a car being driven by none other than Ximena.

“IT WORKED! IT MOTHERFUCKING WORKED! I KNEW IT!” Alan howled with glee as he rushed towards the vehicle, having to stop just a little short in order to catch his breath, doubled over, hands resting on his knees.

“You fucking did it.” He breathed, looking up at Ximena, before his eyes began to wander to the others there.

“This shit’s real, right? I’m not going nuts from fucking rapid onset finger loss?”

[Gundham]

Cecilia nodded her head frantically at Ximena, overjoyed to hear someone speaking in her native tongue. "¡Sí sí, yo soy! Soy... Cecilia."

The boy - Stephen? - was looking at her. She put a hand to her face, realizing it was probably still bloody from... everything. Her face burned with self-consciousness as she opened the door and slid into the back seat. "G-Gracias."

She hugged the duffel bag to herself, looking at the other two. Their necks were bare. Her hand flew to her own throat, where her collar was still firmly attached. The terrorists... they could still blow it up, couldn't they?

"Tus collares..." she asked, nervously. "¿Cómo lo hiciste?"

But before Ximena could answer, a very loud boy arrived and began talking. Cecilia shrank back into the seat, watching cautiously to see what came next.

[Carrion Queen]

Ceclia opened the back door and slid in, asking them how they got their collars off. She, like the rest of them, looked like absolute shit.

"Pues --" she started.

Then she heard shouting.

Ximena whipped her head back towards the window and saw Alan run up, looking a little worse than when she'd left him, but alive. She didn't think she'd ever been so happy to see someone in her life. Similarly, she also thought he might also be a figment of her exhausted mind.

Ximena leaned way out of the window, slapped the side of the car, and wolf whistled.

"Hey, hot stuff, it's the real deal! How much to get in the car?! Give us a discount since you're missing those fucking fingers!" she catcalled, smiling from ear to ear.

[ItzToxie]

Lumbering through the doorway, Crispin raised his arm to block what little sun there was from getting in his eye, he was still adjusting from the darkness of the prior day. Ray had done a lot more damage than he’d thought, burns up and down his arms, across his chest, his hands especially his right hand almost completely numb and completely immobile by the time he woke up. He wouldn’t be doing much with his left either, dull throbbing pain that filled his scraped and broken knuckles and inflamed fingertips. He couldn’t even see his right hand, buried up underneath the bandages, he didn’t think he wanted to, either. Hell, he still didn’t know anything about his face either, beyond it felt bad, there were no mirrors in this shithole.

Truth be told, this didn’t feel real. All this fucking time, all that fighting, all those people dead, and it was over? Just like that? Wake up, hear the same shit you heard three or four times before, hearing all the people die, then suddenly, you’re just… free?

Ain’t no way this was real.

After everything, getting hunted down, losing his friends, losing his face, having to finish off Gary because if it wasn’t him some sick fuck like Ray or Mercy would’ve took their time with him; after all of that…

It was done, over. Crispy made it.

And those motherfuckers that hunted him? That killed his friends, that disfigured him, that hounded him over and over and over again because if they had to kill someone it may as well have been him, those motherfuckers? Snatching fingers, melting and eating people, lighting people on fire for kicks, getting in your head to feel you die, waking up with the idea implanted that, yeah, they were gonna kill, and yeah they were gonna be the ones to go home? They didn’t. All that fucking effort, and Crispin was still here.

Austin, Kennedy, Kaine, Mercy, Ray… They weren’t. Y’all tried, you motherfuckers fuckin TRIED-

“I’m still here, dawg. Still fuckin’ breathing…” Crispin had said to himself in disbelief as he stumbled towards the vehicle.

He watched Alan jump in joy, he didn’t believe it either.

Crispin was still alive. He made it. They made it.

They…

Crispin stopped a few steps behind Alan, glancing at the others. Besides them two, there was Ximena, Cecilia, and Stephen.

“Holy shit…”

There… There had to be more of them, right? How many of them had fucking died?

[Kermit]

((Astrid careened out from an already-broken first floor window and began sprinting wildly in the direction of the car.))

[Applesintime]

Cecilia climbed into the car, and then there were three. Ten of them were supposedly left, so Stephen had a hard time thinking about how they'd all fit into the car. There were twice as many people as there were seats, and even if they doubled up, Ximena had to have a clear view to drive, so that left one person who had to stay here. Not permanently, but with the furries presumably still lurking around, who knew what would happen to them?

Alan showed up. And then Crispin did. At the sight of him, Stephen's jaw tightened. Of course that fucker would still be alive. He'd killed good people, and yet he was just going to ride out of here like nothing had fucking happened? Even still, Stephen popped out to wave at the two of them. "Hey, did you guys see Claudia? Is-Is she OK?" They probably wouldn't have found her, but she was still alive, and if anything had happened to her, if Crispin had done something...

"We're gonna need to leave someone behind. I vote for the squirrel." Stephen leaned in to turn the radio down just a little, murmuring into Ximena's ear as he did. What she would think, he didn't know, but if they had to take him, and leave someone else behind, he wouldn't be happy until Crispin was in a cell. And then in the car's rear view mirror, he could see someone jumping out of a window and start running for the car. The back windscreen was starting to get all misty with fog, but it looked like a girl.

Please let it be Claudia.

[ItzToxie]

Stephen called out to them, or most likely Alan, last time they met Stephen didn’t seem to keen of him, and Crispin doubted anything changed, asking about Claudia. Didn’t matter, he didn’t have to prove shit to anyone. He felt lesser inclined to answer when he saw Stephen whispering some bullshit, probably about his face or all the blood.

“Ain’t seen shit, figured she was with you. Last I heard from the Owl bitch she wasted Anatoly.”

The rapid footsteps barreling towards the car to Crispy’s left activated his fight or flight. He shifted in place, ready for one more sumbitch to try and jump him. Hands wouldn’t do much, but he still had his legs.

[Catche Jagger]

Alan laughed harder than he otherwise would’ve at Ximena’s catcalling. Everything he felt seemed to be heightened now, like he was full to bursting, like he could cry and scream and cackle all at once.

“Hey! When you’re top of the line, you don’t cut things down just cause you’ve got a couple dings, you know?” He grinned, but his expression faltered as he heard Crispin’s approach behind him and saw Stephen go and mutter something to Ximena.

“Sorry, I’ve been with Crispin, haven’t seen her around.” Alan noted in regards to Claudia, before bringing focus back to Ximena.

“Let me tell you what, I do happen to have a special deal going right now, just one thing to get me in that car.” He began, stepping a bit closer as his voice became quieter, more somber. “If I go, then Crispin comes too.

“I know he can be a dickhead and he’s fucked up a bunch of times, but he ain’t a monster, and he don’t deserve getting stuck out here in the desert.” Alan asserted, though his voice remained soft.

[Applesintime]

It didn't look like it was Claudia. In fact, the closer the girl came, the more apparant it became that it was Astrid. Stephen also had... mixed thoughts on her. Joel was her cousin or something, and she just fucking killed him like that? That's fucking brutal. Crispin and Alan hadn't seen her, either. Where was she?

Oh, fuck it.

"Save my seat. I'm gonna look for Claudia." Opening the car door, Stephen put his bag on his seat and rushed into the compound.

She had to be there, she had to be alive.

((Stephen Sanders continued in Final Hurdle))

[Kermit]

The four bags hanging from Astrid's shoulders swung back and forth violently as she ran. The closer she got, the more obvious her injuries were. The left side of her face looked all bruised and swollen and was just generally covered in dried blood. Her nose was bent slightly.

As she approached the car, her footsteps slowed. She nodded her head in acknowledgement to Crispin and Guy Fieri as she walked past behind them to the boot of the car. She popped it open, and then tossed three of the bags she was carrying into it. She slammed it shut.

Then, she walked around the long way to the front passenger-side door, waving her hand to Ximena through the windshield as she passed by it on her way. Once she had reached her destination, she very quickly climbed inside the car and sat down next to Stephen's bag.

"Can't talk; nerve damage." She mumbled out through half of her mouth, while bringing up a hand and pointing it at the injured side of her own face. Her head looked straight forward, face directed outside through the windshield. Her shoulders slumped down slightly. She was breathing heavily through her mouth. She did not blink.